I suppose I should weigh in on Cornell. Everyone else has.
I was a young pilot in the U.S. Air Force back in the days when flying was a boy’s club. It was a hard-drinking, hard-partying profession, and I suspect still is. Back then, officers’ clubs had stag bars and would bring in dancers — strippers, actually — one or two nights a week. Those hard-working women were wise to our ways and would bring along a couple of beefy bouncers to keep things from getting out of hand, and boy did we ever try to make things get out of hand.
So in 2006, when the Duke lacrosse team was accused of raping a dancer they’d hired for a party — presumably a woman who showed up at the party without muscle to protect her in case those college boys, fueled by alcohol, got out of hand — I believed the accuser. Even though lawyers eventually got the team members off, and even though the woman, years later, recanted her story, I still believe her.
To my knowledge, no one commenting on the Cornell story has mentioned Jon Krakauer’s book about campus rape, Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town. Krakauer wrote about the case of a rape committed by football players at the University of Montana, one case among 350 campus rapes reported to university authorities and local law enforcement between January 2008 and May 2012. Almost all of sexual assaults were either ignored or mishandled by the university and the police; the prevailing belief of authorities there, as it is everywhere else, was that the women, under the influence of alcohol or drugs, probably consented but now regret it, and that the futures of the young men — boys just being boys after all — will be ruined should they be prosecuted. Many of them are star athletes; many are the sons of wealthy donors. Why, some of them may become Supreme Court justices or even presidents some day!
This is exactly how the military treated sexual assault and the women who reported it during my time in uniform. In the Air Force, the rapists who escape charges and continue to get promoted are golden boys, on the fast track to leadership and protected by superiors. To this day, despite promised changes in the way sex crimes are investigated and perpetrators punished, military women rarely report sexual assault, because they know to do so is a career-ender.
So yeah, of course there’s more to the story at Cornell, but the heart of it? Those seven guys are reaping what they sowed. Fuck ’em.
#BigSeiko break:
The more expensive the watch, the more it costs to keep it running. I can toss my Seikos in a drawer and forget about them. Not the Swiss stuff (implication being I have more than one Swiss watch, which is a lie: there’s just one and it’s unlikely I’ll ever be able to afford another).
A few days ago I posted this to WatchCrunch, an online forum for watch enthusiasts.
When I wound and set my Breitling last Sunday, the date didn’t advance. I can advance the date by twisting the crown, but it doesn’t advance on its own at midnight. It’s a 36-year-old watch. Over the years I’ve had it serviced twice by Breitling, but can’t afford that now. There’s a certified watchmaker at a local shop and I’m going to take it to him instead … might even ask him to do a full service, depending on his price. This is one of the few watches I plan to pass on, so it’s important to me.
Several Crunchers responded, most encouraging me to go with the local watchmaker, but one rooting for sending it off to Breitling.
I have serviced more than 10 Breitling chronographs always at the brand service centre here in Toronto, none during the past 2 years but appreciate the price is quite high (my Navitimer 1461 4 yr annual calendar Moonphase set me back more than 3k cad plus a new crystal around 8 years ago) but watch was shipped to Switzerland for a full service. A friend delivered his 3 hander Avenger Seawolf to a reputable area watchmaker, against my advice, still paid over 700 cad around 5 yrs ago. Not certain the community where you reside but neighbourhood watchmakers have started to bill competitively with the brand watchmakers. Those older Chronomats deserve a top quality service imo.
Dude must have a shit-ton of money.
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In the end I decided to entrust my precious to Eric, the local watchmaker. He has it now, and in addition to fixing the date advance he’s giving it a full service. The price will be just under $500, far less than Breitling would charge (the last time I sent this watch to them they had it for nine months and billed me $1,000 — that was 15 years ago and I’m afraid to ask what it would cost today). Eric says he should have it back to me in about three weeks.
It’s an unanticipated expense, and my plan to buy a new watch for my birthday has been blown out of the water. But this one’s special and worth the expense.